7.02
In advancing, a runner shall touch first, second, third and home base in order. If forced to return, he shall retouch all bases in reverse order, unless the ball is dead under any provision of Rule 5.09. In such cases, the runner may go directly to his original base.

I was told by a HS umpire that the rule is that the throw has to go to the base where the runner left from (in this case 1st base). So no, I don't think he would be out if the throw went to second (unless he happened to still be in the area and was tagged, obv).

How that conversation started and that question came up, is a long story in itself. I never thought that I would have a chance to use this btw. Alcohol brings up some weird conversations imo.

when he was a rookie, i remember mauer hit one to straightaway center at the dome that was just a bomb. must have been like 445. it was a high line drive; he has a lot of power.

i think most of why he doesn't hit a lot of homers is that he usually hits the ball square instead of getting under it. i.e. he doesn't get much backspin and often gets a lot of topspin instead. even his HRs are usually linedrives rather than flyballs. it's definitely not an issue of strength/power

even if it's not luck it's not necessarily steroids. mauer is huge and he's coming into his prime. he could just be getting stronger.

Yeah I thought of roids too, but Mauer is like the last person I'd expect to be on them. Maybe I'm just naive. He was always projected to be a 20-25 HR guy when he was coming up, maybe it just took him longer.

Or maybe his back is just super healthy now?

yeah don't get me wrong, I think the chance of him being on roids is tiny, but I'm just saying I would be super crushed if he were

just talked with some friends of mine who are much more experienced umpires than me and they agree with what your HS umpire friend said. i cant ever imagine a situation where this comes up in MLB, but crazy **** happens in little league.

No one would surprise me anymore. Not even Mauer. There is only one player who I would be very slightly surprised about, but moreso disappointed. (#2 in your programs, #1 in your hearts.)

griffey JR would pretty much upset me because that would mean 1/2 of the top 10 leaders in all-time HRs are roiders

mauer is the last person who would ever be on roids. i mean, he didn't even drink in HS. he's like the biggest wally cleaver ever.

lol, this is what I mean. Like I'm not sure if he even knows what roids are, much less how to get them.

Alright... let's not go crazy.

pretty sure he was just kidding

This may be off base but...this HR thing reminds me of my softball career. When I started with softball after HS I was 6'4" and 165 had no power to hit HR's. And I became a good line drive hitter. But then down the road I got bigger and grew stronger. But I was still a good line drive hitter until one day the wind was literally blowing out to left at about 30 mph and a guy on my team said, stop trying to dink one over second and jack one out of here, and boom, i did in the next AB (and in a very sick statement from my teammates got the silent treatment after returning to the dugout, heh). And then went on hitting HR's after that day. So, Mauer is such an awesome line drive hitter and probably a bit leery of deviating from that; but, now he's having some success driving the ball, so imo he's stronger now and is also gaining confidence in hitting for power, so we're seeing more HR's.

wait, what was the statement your teammates were making?

Cuddy, such a goofball, GET OUT OF THE WAY man.

another thing about homers is they do come in bunches for linedrive hitters. if you normally don't get the ball in the air, but you are swinging in such a way that you do a little, it could change your hr rate pretty significantly in the short run. and i guess it can just be a "feeling it" thing. sometimes you hit a homerun and it feels just right and you feel like you can do it every time, and you visualize it in the on deck circle, and then you get your pitch again and you do it again, like muscle memory or something.

well, maybe statement isn't the right word. It was just totally sick. There was a core group of about 6-7 guys and we were all really close friends and alot of us were roommates and such and knew each other for a long time. And so they knew this was the first HR I had ever hit in my life and I was flying around the bases, happy with a huge smile on my face, and our normal custom was to line up at homeplate and greet the HR hitter with high fives and grins and laughs and pats on the back. And somehow from the time I hit it they organized not to do that and even when I got back to the dugout they ignored me as if I just popped out to second. And I was sitting there on the bench and they're playing this joke on me until iirc I just said C'MON, and the finally dropped it and laughed and congratulated me.

haha you guys run the bases for softball homeruns? what league?

we've run the bases for HR's in every league I've ever played in. *shrug*

the only time I've ever played in a game where we didn't run the bases was the CanAm in Fargo where Canadian teams come down and play American teams for a weekend, and everyone still ran the bases except for one Canadian guy who was about 350 and couldn't run on his bad knees but could jack 'em. He would walk halfway to first and then to the dugout after the ball cleared the fence.

(if he ever got a hit instead of a HR it was always a single and they had a bunch of young guys, kids of guys on the team, whose sole purpose was to pinchrun for the big guy, and then he would just reenter and hit the next time up)

ASA or ISA or something? i play mostly USSSA, and i've played in probably 15 different leagues and have never seen anyone run the bases for a hr.

*I think* they've always been ASA leagues.

(iirc, if the local org doesn't want to run them out, they can make that rule if they wish)

glad we can always rely on punto for the head first dive into first

He's a Gamer!

goooooooooooo 8th inning, if we don't get one there I don't really see the bottom third doing much against rivera